Ford Motor Company releases its latest sustainability report.
[Auto Industry News]: Ford's sustainability committee finds company's climate change response wanting. The committee says Ford's efforts to reduce C02 emissions 'fall far short of the necessary response to climate change' and calls for clear targets to improve Ford's average fuel economy, while welcoming its recognition of the problem and efforts to reduce manufacturing emissions.
[According to] Debra Hall, director of the corporate accountability program at Ceres and chair of the report review committee, 'In rich and probing conversations that reflected diverse views, Ford and the report committee took stakeholder engagement to a new level, resulting in a bold sustainability report that solidly documents past performances and the challenges that lie ahead.'.
[Global Exchange], on the other hand, gives Ford a failing grade: Fifty-two pages of nice remarks about climate change and sustainability couldn't hide the fact that according to its own report, Ford's US fleetwide fuel economy and its CO2 emissions have gone from bad to worse. Ford's fleetwide fuel economy went from 23.6 miles per gallon in 2003 to 22.8 MPG in 2004. During the same time period, its US fleet CO2 emissions went from 375 grams per mile in 2003 to 386 grams in 2004....Ford cars are still the dirtiest in the industry.
Ford, or at least parts of Ford, recognize this, since the report notes: Ford cannot be a meaningful contributor to combating climate change without clear targets for reducing emissions from its vehicles, including emissions reductions in the emerging markets where it anticipates the most growth. But despite Bill Ford's clear commitments to environment, and numerous creative initiatives at the company, the rubber apparently hasn't yet hit the road.
[Bloomberg] of course is more sanguine: Ford Motor Co., the world's third- largest automaker, posted a $284 million quarterly loss, its first in almost two years, amid declining sales of sport-utility vehicles. The company plans 'significant' plant closings to reduce North American production.... 'It's probably going to get uglier before it gets better,' said analyst Mike Ward of Soleil Securities in New York....Ford's loss deepens the troubles for U.S.-based automakers and their primary parts suppliers as Japanese rivals such as Toyota Motor Corp. continue to gain U.S. sales and market share.
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